Dead sperm whale washes ashore in West Marin

A young male sperm whale washed ashore near Abbotts' Lagoon in the Point Reyes National Seashore over the weekend.

"It was very sad and a bit upsetting to see," said Bob Johnson of Greenbrae, who snapped photos of the 12-foot whale carcass after coming across it while hiking Monday afternoon with his wife. "There were many cuts to the skin, as though it had been caught in a net."

But on Tuesday, teams from the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco and the Marine Mammal Center in the Marin Headlands examined the whale, which weighed about 700 pounds. They did not see any outward trauma and said it was possible the calf simply got separated from its mother.

"We do see them wash up here from time to time, but it is not that common," said Sarah Allen, a scientist with the Point Reyes National Seashore.

On Thanksgiving Day 2004, a young sperm whale washed ashore at McClures Beach in the Point Reyes National Seashore. In January 2004, an adult male sperm whale stranded at Point Reyes.

Sperm whales feed on Humboldt squid, warmer-water denizens that have appeared in recent years off the Northern California coast.

"It could be the squid are coming farther north and the whales are following," Allen said.

Because they tend to live far offshore and dive deep for their food, not much is known about the whales' migration habits.

"We don't see them very often, so this provides us a unique opportunity to study the species," said Liz Wheeler, research assistant with the Marine Mammal Center.